There is a famous
passage in the inaugural message of our first Altrurian president which
compares the new civic consciousness with that of a disembodied spirit
released to the life beyond this and freed from all the selfish cares
and greeds of the flesh. But perhaps I shall give a sufficiently clear
notion of the triumph of the change among us when I say that within half
a decade after the fall of the old plutocratic oligarchy one of the chief
directors of the Accumulation publicly expressed his gratitude to God
that the Accumulation had passed away forever. You will realize the
importance of such an expression in recalling the declarations some of
your slave-holders have made since the Civil War, that they would not have
slavery restored for any earthly consideration.
"But now, after this preamble, which has been so much longer than I meant
it to be, how shall I give you a sufficiently just conception of the
existing Altruria, the actual state from which I come?"
"Yes," came the nasal of the old farmer again, "that's what we are here
fur. I wouldn't give a copper to know all you went through beforehand.
It's too dumn like what we have been through ourselves, as fur as heard
from.
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